You Must Remember
by Oxe61874
Summary: Was this the first time? The last? Or somewhere in between? It was not sure, but it intended to end the game that takes place no matter what. Sacrifices would have to be made, but the cycle could end, Alex could be happy. The dead's hunger could be satisfied. The island... it's needs fulfilled. But if all can't coexist, what is important? That is the question it must ask itself.
1. Chapter 1

There were voices reverberating throughout the cave, she remembered. Was leave possible, they asked? Well, was it? Is it? What does 'leave' mean; what is it? Unsure of the answer to this, but scared. Certainly scared. The boy, Jonas, sprawled on the ground next to her because of what she'd done.

How could she have known, one voice asks. She should have known, another says. She shakes her head to clear the thoughts from her mind. These aren't helping. None of this is helping. This daze she's in, feeling as if this has all happened in the past and she's simply watching it play out, is not helping. An eerie silence penetrates the air as she tries to decipher the message. Is leave possible?

"What… what do you mean, is leave possible," the girl with the hair like an ocean asks.

"Is. Leave. Possible." three different voices reply. As if it's the simplest thing in the world, as if she simply misheard them and a single repetition will clear it all up.

"I don't-" the girl sighs. "Fine. Sure, leave is possible, whatever! What do you want me to do?"

"Thank. You. Blue hair. Girl." the voices say again. The sound is tinny, as if through an old phone. The girl with blue adorning her head has no time to consider this, however, as the earth beneath her feet begins to seize. The radio in her jacket's pocket screams with interference and static, and the air in front of her very eyes seems to shake, compressing and expanding. Her ears pop repeatedly as the air pressure shifts. Eventually the girl can't take it anymore and blackness consumes her senses.

When she wakes, it is dark. Impeccably so. It feels as if she is lying on a flat surface, as if everything that exists is the flat surface she lies on. She stands. The air, or whatever impossibly black substance takes its place, is crushingly silent; so silent that she hears the blood rush through her ears and a ringing as loud as a jet engine. She yells something. She doesn't know what, but the sound probes into the darkness. Nothing returns, not even an echo. She feels minutes pass. She looks at the watch adorning her wrist but the hands on it have stopped dead. Like everything else here. Dead. More time passes, and it begins to feel that she's spent hours in this barren hell, although there's no way she could know, as nothing moves to indicate time's passing. She longs for Jonas, for Ren, for Nona and Clarissa, even, although Nona was far too quiet to make a difference here and she considered Clarissa a bitch. Then it hits her. Where she stands, she is completely, impossibly alone. She will never see another soul again, here. She will remain trapped with nothing but herself as company. She begins to run.

Long ago, she'd picked a direction and taken off in it. It had been so easy then, an adrenaline-fueled sprint for her life. But now her lungs were ablaze, her legs stabbed from all sides by invisible daggers threatening to make her stop. Even the jacket which she'd grown so accustomed to carrying felt like an anchor on her back. There was no choice. Stop of her own accord or pass out of exhaustion. She chose the former. "Oh, Alex," the girl muttered as she flopped to the ground, "what have we gotten ourselves into now?" It was an old habit that the girl had, talking to herself, but it always calmed her. Settled her nerves. Cleared the panicked thoughts that inevitably made their way in from her mind. The girl, Alex, pulled her knees to her chest and buried her face in them. "How did we get here? Where is here?" Alex poked her head up to look around. From the corner of her eye came a purple light. It was far away still, but approaching quickly. Alex had always been curious, and the thought that the light could be a threat never registered in her mind. It seemed… alive, almost. As if it were a conscious, shifting entity that had also found itself trapped in this place. It slowed as it neared, and Alex recognized it to be a massive group of fireflies.

They drifted in toward Alex and fluttered in circles around her. For a moment, she was a kid again, laughing in pure joy at the wondrous beauty of the swarms of purple rotating an arm's length away. A wall of glowing magenta, twisting like a tornado, surrounded her from head to toe. It soothed her to watch and the aching muscles stopped nagging for a moment. Slowly, the fireflies shifted from their magenta hue to a blue reminiscent of the most beautiful nebulae in the sky. Their swirling slowed and stopped, and they drifted away from Alex. Their numbers began to dwindle, dropping from the thousands that had surrounded her to only a few hundred. What remained created a humanoid form as Alex watched in awe. Once they all fluttered into place, their movement stopped for a moment as they set their tiny feet on something. They curled up and exploded into puffs of blue mist that made Alex scream in actual pain. Was this the nature of this place? To create something unimaginably beautiful only to destroy it before her eyes? Was this hell? What had she done to deserve this fate?

The smoke cleared and there stood something. Alex watched warily as the figure became more defined against the backdrop of black. The entity gave off a blue glow. It was a human, or at least was humanoid with a skin of electric blue and teal hair. The reaction causing the skin to glow settled and it became as black as everything else, but it's hair remained a shining light. The various facial features were also defined, the eyes a light blue where they should have been white and a darker blue at the irises. The mouth was easily identifiable by a small line of blue light shining between the lips. Sparks of blue periodically shot from the ponytail that it's hair was in and arced down the rest of it's body, showing its outline as they did so. Two of these sparks made their way from her hair to illuminate her arms and hands, which she rotated in front of her eyes as if inspecting their quality. It turned to Alex and said in a feminine voice, "It's good to exist again."


	2. Chapter 2

"To… have form? What does that even mean," Alex asked.

The figure's eyes squinted and it said, "It's… hard to explain, really, to someone who's always had a body to inhabit. I suppose the simplest way to say it is that I haven't had a body for a few millennia and it's nice to be more than a shifting field containing rational thought." Alex's face, illuminated by the blue beams emanating from the creature's eyes, was blank. "Oh," it realized aloud, "you have no idea what I'm saying at all, do you?"

"No," Alex said cautiously.

"Well, it's not at all important to what we've got to do. Do you," it hesitated, seeming like it wasn't sure what it would say next, "know where you are or how you got here?"

"No, not really. There was a, uh, a portal, or something. I, um, I guess I opened it with my radio somehow? And there were these voices, they were asking me… something about leaving? And then I told them that they could leave, I think, and I blacked out and woke up here," Alex explained.

"Do you remember the cycle, Alex?"

"Wait, what? There was some sort of cycle that I was supposed to see? No, I guess I missed it. Why? Is it important, or something? Do I need it to get out of here? Wait, how do you know my name?"

A large group of sparks shot down the figure's body. Two illuminated it's face. It was clearly angry, or at least disappointed about something. "Very well," it said in a masked voice. "Remember this, if you can."

"If I can? Am I going to forget this," Alex asked frantically. The entity seemed to pay no attention. "Hold on, hold on, pause," Alex shouted. This got it's attention. "You're going to tell me what's going on before we do anything! What the hell is this place, what the hell are you, what the hell is going on?"

"All this and more on the next episode of Dragon Ball Z,"it muttered.

"What the hell does that even mean?!"

"I honestly have no idea. It just… felt right, I guess? What is it that you want to know, exactly, in order of significance?"

"Okay," Alex said, calmer. "First of all, what is this place and how did I get here?"

"This place? Not entirely sure, myself. I've gathered that this place is at least called The Void. Makes sense. I've been here for a few thousand years and haven't really seen much to make this place less… empty. As for how you got here, you pissed off a Sentinel, I think. Either that or you've given the time-space continuum for the general area of Edward's Island more holes than a block of swiss cheese. Between the two, I'd hope that time is shot, by the way."

"So don't screw around with a Sentinel, should I see one?"

"They'll probably screw around with you," it answered. "Play along. You haven't known suffering until you've angered a Sentinel."

"What do they do," Alex asked, enraptured.

"I've honestly already said too much on the subject," it answered. "Next question, please."

"Okay. What's going on in the real world? What did I do out there?"

It sighed. "I," it hesitated, eyes flashing for a moment with uncertainty, "can't tell you that. All I can say is that every question you have will be answered in due time. I promise."

"Why can't you tell me?"

"There's a sequence of events that must take place, I think. If I tell you some things, things don't work out how I-we, rather, need them to. That's as specific as I can get on that. Anything else?"

"Yeah. Who, or what, are you? How did you end up here?"

"I'm… an idea. I was created long ago, for a purpose I'm not sure of. I lived once, I think. But then I ended up here somehow, and if I had a body, a life, it withered away in here somewhere. You're familiar, though. I feel like we've met before; it's like there's something bubbling right below the surface with you. It's," it hesitated. "It's long. And convoluted. And it makes absolutely no sense, not even to me. But I remember you, if only a little bit. Like, when I saw you sitting here in the Void, I thought, 'That's Alex. That's the one I've been looking for.' And it was crazy, like absolutely insane, because I haven't been looking for anything, but when I saw you, that was exactly what I thought. Even as I'm just kinda venting right now, it's like being around you is bringing up these memories. Do you think you might know anything about that?"

"No," Alex apologized. "I mean, I don't remember you, at least. Do you have, like, a name, or something like that?"

It was silent for a moment before saying, "Blue. I think. I remember being called 'Blue'. Who called me that?"

"Blue. Well, it fits, I suppose." Alex laughed. "Have you ever seen yourself?"

"No, not really."

"Well, Blue is fitting. So I guess we're going to be getting to know each other pretty well, if there's no way out of here."

Blue sighed. "No, there's a way out. You can leave."

"What about you," Alex asked.

"Doesn't work for me."

"Oh. Well, I can't really just leave you here," Alex said dejectedly. "And how does that work, you not being able to leave?"

"I don't know. But I've tried to leave. Something always stopped me, though. Like I felt that my purpose was in here. But you… I can feel it. You need to leave."

"What about you? You'll just stay here?"

"This place is my purpose. I can feel that somewhere deep inside me. I'm not done here."

"So you're not interested in leaving, but you'll get me out of here?"

"That's basically it."

"Well, thanks, I guess."

"Let's get you out of here," Blue said. Once again, it's skin flared blue, revealing a definitely feminine figure. Her eyes squeezed shut in concentration as her skin began to take an orange hue. She held her arms out in front of her. Alex watched on in awe as Blue's hair burst into a blue flame. Arcs of blue lightning shot from the fire now adorning her head to the ground. The ground began to break apart and chunks of rock shot into the air. A strong gust of wind shot from behind Alex, knocking her onto her hands and knees, and circled around Blue. The wind carried the rocks around Blue in a rotation whose speed was rapidly increasing. All the while, the lightning shooting from Blue's head into the ground was knocking more debris into the air. The tornado forming around her steadily grew in size and strength until she was entirely engulfed by it.

For a moment, the roaring of the tornado and the cracks signalling the blasts of electricity from what was once Blue's hair silenced. The whirling of the storm she had apparently created continued, but it created no noise. And then it all stopped. The air began to shake and vibrate. The radio in Alex's pocket blared static, where before it had picked up no frequencies. The whirling of the storm stopped and it compressed violently inward on Blue. Blue staggered and fell to her knees. Blue was lying on the ground gasping, skin shining with the intensity of the sun. She scrambled to her feet and once again held her arm before her. Focusing intensely on her fingertips, she chanted. The orange glow drained from her extremities, seeming to flow to her right hand. She screamed in agony, but continued the chant.

The hand she held out was shaking as more and more of Blue's skin drained of color. It was becoming so bright it was painful to look at. After a minute of this, all color had drained from Blue, and her hair, eyes, and mouth were once again the only things visible. Other than the hand, of course, which was a beacon, bathing an area for miles around in an orange glow. She clenched it into a fist and acted as if she were throwing a stone. The color left her hand and formed an unstable-looking orb that floated a few paces away. A small flicker of flame still remained in Blue's hair. She concentrated and it, too, left to join the orb in the form of a static crack. The orb shifted into a triangular window. Waves of energy emanated from it and a field with a lighthouse stood on the other side.

Alex stared in awe for a moment before clearing her throat and saying, "So, I guess this is the last I see of you, huh?"

An exhausted Blue said between pants, "Yeah. Hopefully… you don't… end up… here… again."

"If there's a way back, I'll come back for you," Alex said.

"No… don't say that. But… remember me… in case… things go wrong… you must remember," she said back.

"If things go wrong?"

"Don't… worry about… it… for now. I'm tired… need to rest. But remember this… as… a safety measure."

"Are you trying to reassure me? Because I don't feel reassured!"

Blue had finally caught her breath. "Listen. You are going to go out there and live the rest of your life happily. But you're going to remember me. As a form of protection in the worst-case scenario. If you remember me, I can help you. The worst-case isn't going to happen, but I need you to remember me anyway. Got it?"

"Okay. Be happy. I can do that, I think. And remember you. Not too hard on that front, either. Got it."

"Well then, let's get you out of here. You just step through that portal right there and you should wake up in… looks like Epiphany Fields, somewhere? Crash course: go out there, remember me."

Alex laughed. "Thanks, professor. Anything else?"

"Oh yeah, I almost forgot. If you notice anything cycling, looping, recurring, any of that, you pay attention to that shit. Because it's generally an indicator of bad things to come."

"Looping? Got it, I guess. Well, thanks," Alex said as she stepped through the triangular hole.

* * *

Alex woke up next to Jonas with a strange sense that she was missing something. That she'd forgotten something. Of course, she'd have no time to consider this. We all know what the rest of that night held for them all, and especially Alex. So, she forgot it all. Who could blame her?


End file.
